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• Poetry > Free Verse
  Checkmate

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  Maybe I’ll lick my savage knuckles or shoot arrows at the sun And if our anonymous devils dance after slipping on their potential tap shoes we might play the waiting game they’ll click click away as paparazzi cameras flash phosphorescent lights and strip us down to our Botoxed ski...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Broken Record Sickness

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  Two hands in folds of shoddy cotton, in clouds of cheap champagne and cigarette smoke. My ringing ears Echoing the television murmurs, but it's the same news on a broken record, broken record horrors. Now the clock – It's snickering, a thief, consuming time and stealing the 217 kisses, ...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Bittersweet Keepsake

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  You are unlocking my doors, Peeling the skin from my chest digging deep to discover my pulsing heart. And it’s beating with a fervor. Lust in my eyes, glittering in the lowlight. A mirror of past mistakes. oh, it’s an ache in my fingers, a sigh in my belly. We exchange hearts, o...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  The Best Cup of Coffee

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  Is always the first one out of the pot. And after all this time, after all we've been through, You’ve always given it to me....
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Saccharine

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  Writers like coffee and chocolate. In this way, I suppose, they are normal, but they risk sounding cliché and mysterious to study their saccharine ways, and find that the combination of coffee-chocolate bliss is eclipsed by the taste of a word on their tongues, the bitter blue of their p...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Cancer

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  The cherry tree this spring Has forgotten how to bloom And strings of mind (frayed with the strain) Have threatened snapping soon. And when my talking eyes Close shut and cannot speak, My brittle bones and spider veins Will start their hide and seek. The crayons on our new faces Have wa...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Sister

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  My sister fell today we were climbing high on bridges of rock sunset gleaming But the light was too soft and she couldn’t see and she tripped, slipping Fell. The lights are bright now in the waiting room Flourescent spots but my Coca Cola has crashed Brown liquid all over the tile Stic...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Damn Agitating Hope (off on a tangent)

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  When the rotting fruit of the day rolls onto your tongue, and the cold caffeine of sweet agitation shocks your all-too-willing system, you'll awaken from your stupor. When the heat of the desert combines with the imperfection of agitation (like splotches of ink that adulterate the ivo...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Vagabond Wandering Lacking Rhythm

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  oh rhythm… clip-clopping like vagabond horses sick with volatility, where silent thunderstorms are my liquid words (falling from the tongue) and the wandering cures my talking eyes. Within his bending sickle’s compass come these talking eyes are beautiful doves of death, where the melodi...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  The Invisible Ones

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  This is for the people Who aren’t good enough. The people who will dream their lives away but will never get their happily ever after. This is for the B students. This is for the average the mediocre the forgettable and replaceable and unremarkable. This is for them. This is for people w...
• Nonfiction > Heroes
  U2- Feeling the Passion Behind the Music

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  I grew up with the U2 song “With or Without You” resonating throughout my home, its poignant chords striking the house so that the carpet shook. Perhaps on a melancholy day “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” would waft a few lonely cadences to my ears. U2 was simply part of my ...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  What Mother Thinks

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  Mother thinks I am washing the windows with a blue cloth and a bottle of Windex that might smear the stains around on a sheet of glass. Aren't they strange, windows? Aren't they strange, so clear and open so transparent like people. but sometimes if you adjust your sight you can see y...
• Nonfiction > Personal Experience
  Orange Peels and Poverty

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  It is, perhaps, cliché for me to say that visiting Africa in second grade was one of the primary events that had a large impact on me. In actuality, however, it was not the whole of Africa that changed me, it was a specific incident that occurred in South Africa, in the heart of a poverty-struck to...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Why She Is Tumbling (Into Love)

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  Because he sucked on the green-apple jolly ranchers all day, his mouth puckered and warm. Because he shared all the watermelon ranchers with her, and laughed when she spit out the too-sour blue ones. Because his hair was all blonde and brown and black and maybe even red, and one lock in the back ...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Journey Home

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  In the summer, when our cracked spines split like melons in the heat we reached toward the unattainable sun, unbearable dreams. You kissed me, hard, under the midnight moon like no regrets, Our dangling cigarettes tainted the air. Shivering smoke may have combined with your skin-scen...
• Fiction > Romance
  Bittersweet Summers and Pacific Blue Crayons

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  There was that one day in early June, do you remember? Summer conquered the frailty of spring; it came crashing down like a midseason monsoon. The air conditioning sputtered and broke that evening, and we slept like babes, naked in our warm beds. In the morning, the grass glittered with sweet diamo...
• Nonfiction > Personal Experience
  Homes to Sleep

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  When I press money into his hand, he says thank you. His voice is rich and clear—beautiful, unexpected. The skin of his palm is filthy: covered with dirt and grime, but it is warm against mine as our fingers touch for a moment. I transfer the nickels and dimes, small change, into his fingers, but ...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Atoms Multiplying Atop a Smoky Scene

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  cigarettes dangle between our tired fingers and the smoke that is released from the plums of our mouths lingers near the caramel of your skin. I like the smoky way you smell and your scent draws me towards your oval Fingernails white and pink resting atop atoms multiplying like The li...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Cliché

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  let us say the summer that year was a cliché to its lovers. And its once open windows stood firm against Prying Eyes. Perhaps the silver smoke of automobiles rose toward the waiting sun that climbed so eagerly. we didn't know. Summer was a witness A watcher Tracking our movements, count...
• Nonfiction > Memoir
  Ginger Sands and Wonder

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  I am from heat. Heat so thick and deep it seeps into your bones, heat that melts the tar into ink beneath your feet. I am from the arid desert, its parched beauty reaching toward the whipped cream clouds, and from the snakes slithering on their bellies to roast under a scalding sun. I am from nei...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Capture

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  Moments that fall right into your heart the pause between sweet day and salty night, where a blue moon hangs silent, beauty exposed, in the fleeting dusk, her only cloak a mournful parade of clouds and a flock of birds and the hesitance of his solemn wine lips, like two sweetest grapes i...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Broken Remains

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  a sultry dusk melts into the bitter folds of night Quiet Listen sleepy pulses of the bees as they fall into drunken dreams, their honey wings scented with sorrow, and the sharp sound of your rose colored glasses shattering as they tumble, as if in slow motion, to the hard floor beneath you...
• Fiction > Action-Adventure
  The Shattering

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  The night everything changed. These opening words to my long-awaited novel, illuminated by the fluorescent glare of the computer screen, stare expectantly back at me. The cursor blinks, waiting for a flow of brilliant words; my fingers sit tense and poised above the keyboard, ready to work. But...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  This Girl

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ

  She moves silently inside of my soul. She knows me. My fears and my hopes, and she can comfort me. I envy her, this girl who is whole, this girl who I could have been. There are too many ifs and too many uncertanties Clawing at me, shredding me. So many holes. So many fine lines. I envy her...
• Art /
  Photo > Photographs
  

  Photograph Boulevard

  

  By CarlyMurphy, Phoenix, AZ